The roles have traditionally been demarcated: women perform, men watch. The swaying of the hips, the soft and fluid hand movements, the shimmy, the sensuality and the flowing costumes - enough arsenal to fortify belly dance as a women's terra firma. Men's contribution, if at all, has been as a member of the audience. But some men are not content with a spectatorial role. Breaking the barrier - figuratively and literally - they have got onto the stage claiming a place in the hitherto exclusive women's domain.
Rob Galbraith, who prefers to be addressed by his artistic name, Valizan, is one of them. La affaire belly dance began for Valizan nine years ago and the relationship is as passionate as ever. He has taught at the Society for Creative Anachronism (a medieval recreation group that seeks to learn about the past by reliving it). He also teaches at the Toronto-based Arabesque Dance Academy. And when the academy decided to introduce exclusive classes for men this year, Valizan was the obvious choice to conduct them.
This interview took place on a chilly winter evening, half an hour before the all-male class was scheduled to begin. Dressed casually in jeans and denim jacket, his face framed by an unruly mane, Valizan looked every bit an average Canadian. A few minutes before the class, he stepped out to change and reemerged a different person. The flowing costume, turban and his few-days old beard imbued him an Arab identity. And when he takes to the floor, you can see why he is nicknamed the 'Shimmy Shaikh'. Valizan is able to isolate various the parts of his body and shimmy them.
How did you get interested in belly dancing?
I started nine years ago in a group called Society for Creative Anachronism, which is a medieval recreation group. Within the SCA there is a subset of people who recreate Middle Eastern persona and they were trying to research the dance that they were doing at that time. That is where I started learning and dancing. It is a very open environment so my first teacher was a woman who dressed up in a big turban and coat and ordered the men around as if she was a guy. It was lot of fun. I went just for fun and it became an obsession. I found a teacher in Hamilton (a city near Toronto), she was willing to teach men and I was willing to drive to Hamilton. Thus started a working relationship and it became an obsession. It really did.
There is also a health benefit. I found after I danced for two months that I had developed a muscle near my abdomen. As a guy I got really overjoyed and then I stood for half an hour just watching the muscle shift and move. It was a positive reinforcement for me and just fed into the obsession for the dance. We do a lot of stretching before we dance just to get ready and when you are dancing you are stretching and pulling muscles. And you are pulling in ways they are not used to going all the time so you are going to get development on muscles. And I found that very cool. Sometimes when I am driving in car I practise, because I can feel the sensation of engaging a muscle and having it work. And I do not know how to explain the satisfaction, the feeling that I am in control of my body and my muscles. The day when things are sore, it is really great when you go and dance either for performance or just for yourself, when you can engage a muscle to do something or isolate one muscle from another to get an effect from it. The body becomes like a brand new toy.
Belly dance has long been considered women's domain isn't it?
Depending on where you go in the Middle East you would see varied levels of dance. I have tapes of Lebanese festival where hundreds of people are standing in street and men in the crowd are doing shoulder shimmies and very fast ones at that. They also have dabka, which is a very strong and masculine Lebanese dance form. It is not directly related to what I am doing here which is straight belly dance or Egyptian-style belly dance. As a style it has been mostly in people's minds as a women's domain and has more power too. I don't have a problem with it. I just think it looks like a lot of fun and I want to try it too. Fluidity is not a female thing, men can be fluid. And being gentle is not just feminine men can be gentle without being too feminine. I tend not to do stuff that's cutesy because it looks all wrong on me.
Belly dance in many ways has been North Americanised and that is why there has been some trepidation in guys trying it. Here it has been almost exclusively the domain of women because it is very expressive. Men are very afraid of expressing themselves, men's way of expressing themselves tends to be in violence.
Have you had formal training in any other dance form?
I have seen a lot of dance but not learnt any. I have always loved dance. I live in Toronto and I have seen Bharatanatyam, Kathak, Latin dancing, lots of Flamenco, ballets and I loved the fluidity of some and strength of others.
Belly dance is seen as a sensual dance form and hence a woman's domain. Comment.
I think men are sensual too, but we don't tend to express ourselves. I actually tend to think of belly dance as being sensuous. There are some people who see belly dance as being erotic, these are men who would sit in a circle and watch a women dancer and any move she did would not matter, she could stand and breathe for half an hour they would be ecstatic. People who see belly dance as sensual, see it as the engaging of muscles whereas for those who view it as sensuous, it is a feeling in the head. They can see the rustle of your clothes, softness of your hands, doing all this does not excite anybody but it is in your mind. When I dance I would like you to think, 'I would like to do that, I like the flow when he does that.'
What was the general response when you took to belly dance?
I am Canadian born but my mother is Jamaican and my father is Panamanian. My father was a percussionist and Jamaican culture is rife with music. I think it is part of my culture that everybody dances. Because culturally we dance, my mom said he is doing something new and that's nice. My friends are supportive, most are those who tried to dance or dance. They have seen me grow and my obsession with belly dancing. Outside my friends circle, reactions are mostly positive, some people said 'what the heck.' I do it because I enjoy it. When I dance, I'm pretty much dancing for myself, if people watching are it that is great, but if they have a problem with it then they can try it for themselves or go away and do something else. I am not trying to force them.
Is it more difficult for men to learn it?
I think it would be difficult for men to express themselves, I don't think it is difficult for men to learn. It is motivating men to learn that is difficult, because this has been so much a female domain that they are a bit anxious about trying it. I think men want to have fun too specially in modern days so they are willing to give it a try but I don't think men are harder to teach, I think men are unable to express themselves and that is why this may not appeal to them. But now more and more men are now expressing themselves. Go to a club on Saturday night and we can see a lot of men dancing too. If they can get over the fear of dancing in a club with hundreds of people, this is no different. You may be on stage or not.
What have been your experiences of teaching men?
Some men try it once and they think it is fun but not something they want to do on a regular basis, other men will try it and will come back again because they are hooked on trying to do one move. It really depends on whether they have seen the dance. If they have exposure to it regularly they might come back for another class. I have a friend in Hamilton, we fed off each other when we were learning to dance. It became a testosterone competition, which tends to happen because if one guy sees another doing something he can't do he gets challenged. I don't want to say that it is a great way of teaching. I think it is great for people to have challenges, but I don't set it as a challenge. I say come and have fun, I will show you how to do steps and tell you how to practise it. I don't set challenges for people, I think if you really become obsessed with it, it becomes a challenge unto itself.
Have you taught women and how different is it from teaching men?
Yes, I have taught women and I don't really sort of distinguish between one or the other.
But there is an obvious difference in that we have different bodies. Women have soft curves, men are very angular. Women can do delicate stuff with chest or hips, we don't have roundness of hips and the shape so we have to make our moves a little bigger to get same sort of oomph out of the move. It is not going to look the same when men and women dance even though the steps are exactly the same. As men we have to adapt to what has been dominantly a female style. I don't want to limit by saying you have to or don't have to dance in female style because most of teachers I have are female. Steps are the same, but the way each of us is it is bound to be different, which I think is why people learning from the same teacher do not necessarily dance the same way, because what you are learning is filtered through everything you have seen in your life and how you present yourself.
